Suchergebnisse

Focusing on the causes and extent of the Depression of the 1930s and its impact on a wide range of governmental policies, Bryce describes the department's increasing involvement in the formation and conduct of economic policies. The department was involved in events ranging from the collapse of the gold standard in 1931, to the possible default of the governments of the western provinces, to the introduction of federal unemployment and housing policies, to the founding of the Bank of Canada. Bryce presents a fascinating portrait of the early Department of Finance and the informality of the policy process in what was obviously a smaller, simpler Ottawa. From the vantage point of his years of experience within the department, he offers insightful analyses of the central economic issues of this century.

"Canada's Department of Finance during World War II was surprisingly small - a tightly knit coterie of only a few hundred civil servants who managed the country's finances through the dark years of the war and the difficult period of reconstruction that followed. At the centre of this group was an inner circle - a handful of men - whom the deputy minister, Clifford Clark, relied on to shape public policy. This inner circle included Clark, W.A. Mackintosh, A.F.W. Plumptre, a young Mitchell Sharpe, and a young graduate of Cambridge and student of John Maynard Keynes, Robert Bryce, who came to the department in the late 1930s and quickly became a confidant of the deputy minister. During this period little public policy passed through Ottawa that did not bear the stamp of these men." "Reconstructed from archival sources and memory, Canada and the Cost of World War II is Bryce's definitive work on the department during these crucial years as well as an intimate portrait of the civil servants whose war for their country was waged with ledger sheets."--Jacket